(Newser)
–
A former coal CEO must go to prison for one year and pay $250,000 for his role in skirting safety rules prior to a mine explosion that killed 29 of his employees. Don Blankenship, who was running Massey Energy at the time of the 2010 blast in West Virginia, received his sentence Wednesday after his conviction on three misdemeanors. Jurors found that he "set up a scheme to circumvent safety standards and tip off workers to surprise inspections to speed up coal production," reports Bloomberg. Jurors, however, cleared him of felony charges that could have resulted in a decades-long sentence. Blankenship is appealing his conviction, but the judge ruled that he won't be allowed free during the appeal.

"Instead of being to be able to tout you as a success story, we are here as a result of your part in a dangerous conspiracy," said the judge, per the AP. Blankenship, for his part, praised the men killed in the explosion as "great guys, great coal miners," but he didn't sound very repentant in court. "It is important to everyone that you know that I'm not guilty of a crime," he said.

It amazes me that people still go down into those dark holes to dig the devil's dirt. We had dozens of such operations back in the early 1900's and had the deadliest tragedies ever. More than 1500 people died in it and many of them were no-name Mexicans. They are presented on the memorial as numbers and their nicknames. These mines were very primitive. Basically they would build a large thing that looked like a roller coaster. It was about 40-feet tall with rail track running about 300-feet long. The hole was dug at a 45 degree angle. The coal cars would then go down into the hole carrying men with their carbide lamps and picks. As they went down, they would stop digging the access tunnel and then dig sideways. The holes were only 30-inches tall. They would mine out the coal in those side holes until they hit dirt. Then they would continue the access tunnel. The problem was this area to this day is a prime source of natural gas. One of the men would hit a pocket and their carbide lamp would detonate it. Nearly all of the accidents were caused by this method. The Indians owned all of that land but they believed that Earth is sacred and not to be opened. They thought white man was simply playing with the devil. But they let white man dig the devil's dirt as long as they got a small cut. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/pittsburg/postcards/dowcm.jpg Our former governor in the hole, I figure its early 50's. Notice the new electric lamps. http://static.wixstatic.com/media/ba0681_b1e84a8c0275ebb2a3f1097d29237bf3.jpg/v1/fill/w_471,h_401,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/ba0681_b1e84a8c0275ebb2a3f1097d29237bf3.jpg